


Epicenter

by gladdecease



Category: Heroes (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Community: heroes_holidays, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-11
Updated: 2007-05-11
Packaged: 2017-10-15 13:56:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/161498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gladdecease/pseuds/gladdecease
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter and Claire, in the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Epicenter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jatam](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=jatam).



> Originally written for [jatam](http://jatam.livejournal.com/)'s request "{FIC} Claire, Peter – Angst. About what, I don't care!" for [heroes_holidays](http://community.livejournal.com/heroes_holidays/)'s Spring gift exchange.

The Trinity test of a plutonium bomb created an explosion equivalent to 19 kilotons of TNT, and a crater 10 feet deep and over a 1,000 wide.

“Little Boy,” the uranium bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, had a destructive power between 13 and 16 kilotons of TNT. It killed an estimated 90,000 people immediately, and had a blast radius of a mile.

Linderman’s explosion was not quite as destructive as “Little Boy” or the Trinity test though it killed many more people.

Just about .07 percent of the world’s population. Minus two people.

* * *

Claire had lived through radiation before, but Ted Sprague didn’t seem to come close to as powerful as this one - as _Peter_ \- had. She had watched the explosion ripple out, destroying buildings as easily as she could shoo away a fly.

Then she had run to Peter.

She ran, dodging debris and panicking civilians, feeling her skin turn black and her clothes start to peel, and not caring in the least.

Claire found him in the middle of a street, surrounded by abandoned cars. She watched him, not believing for a moment that this was real, but unable to look away. It was just like his dream, he would have told her if he could stop screaming.

And then it was over.

Claire was filled with simultaneous relief and horror. It was over.

Her world turned black as she hit the ground.

* * *

When she woke up, it was because she was suffocating. Dust was clogging her nose, her mouth; she sat up and coughed until she could breathe, and looked around at what Peter had done.

The street was mostly unaffected - the radiation spread from his hands, which he had thrust up at the clouds - but the buildings, all of the skyscrapers and apartment towers were crumbling. They looked as if they’d aged a hundred years in a single night.

The cars that had surrounded them were wrecks, tossed against buildings by the sheer force of the radiation, or just half-melted, rubber gluing the frame firmly in place.

In the distance, Claire could see some buildings that looked almost unaffected. Whoever had been inside, though, was more than likely dead. She choked at the thought. All these people - was everyone she had met here dead? That newspaper stand owner on the corner she had bought bubble gum from everyday for the last week? The stuck-up woman who had snappily told Claire which room belonged to Peter Petrelli? All the kids who’d been sitting in school, minding their own business? Her grandmother, though she’d never really known the overprotective woman? Her _father_ , who hadn’t known she was alive until two weeks ago?

Were they all dead?

Peter was already awake (had he even slept?) and staring at the destruction. It looked like he hadn’t moved from where he stood when this started.

Claire got his attention. “Is - ” she coughed, her voice hoarse, “ - is it over?”

Peter looked at her, eyes hollow. “It’s over.” He didn’t sound happy to say it.

“Are they all…?”

He was silent. She knew the answer, but still wanted him to say it. He knew the answer, but would rather not think about it.

They waited for the other to speak, brooding over the loss this city had suffered.

“…it doesn’t seem fair.”

Claire spoke first.

“It doesn’t seem fair that we aren’t dead.” She looked up at Peter, tears running down her face. “What makes us so special that we get to live? Who decides that we’re good enough, that we’re important enough, to live?”

She looked furious in her half-burnt clothes, with charred hair and an otherwise unmarked tear-streaked face. He imagined he didn’t look any better. He had spent hours (days?) asking himself that same question. _Why me? Why her? Why this city? Why do_ I _live while others die?_

 _How can I be a hero if I killed all these people?_

He had never gotten a proper answer.

“I don’t know, Claire.” She looked up at Peter. He held out a hand. “But if we’re special enough to live through this, can’t we be special enough to save the rest of the world?”

Claire looked at the outstretched hand and thought.


End file.
